El Castillo (Spanish for "the castle"), is also known as the Temple of Kukulcan, is the center of the Chichen Itza archaeological site in the Mexican state of Yucatán. Built by the pre-Columbian Maya civilization sometime between the 9th and 12th centuries CE, El Castillo served as a temple to the god Kukulkan, the Yucatec Maya Feathered Serpent deity closely related to the god Quetzalcoatl known to the Aztecs and other central Mexican cultures of the Postclassic period.